years associated with Mr. Raynor as Pastor, Mr. Raynor being Teacher. It was very fortunate for the Pilgrims that during these years of continued change in the pastoral office, they were able to fall back upon their excellent Ruling Elder, Mr. Brewster, of whom Governor Bradford has written that "when the church had no other minister, he taught every Sabbath, and that powerfully and profitably, to the great contentment of his hearers and their comfortable edification." For thirteen years after the departure of Mr. Raynor the church in Plymouth was without a stated minister. Elder Cushman, the successor of Elder Brewster, preached, without being a pastor. In 1667, John Cotton, Jr., came to them from Boston, and continued with the church for many years.2 "1 The Royal Commissioners reported to the king, in 1666, that they found in the Plymouth Colony "only twelve small towns," and that the people were so poor that "they were not able to maintain scholars to their ministers, but were necessitated to make use of a gifted brother in some places." This statement of the Commissioners may have been true of some towns, but there were a number of university men settled as 1 Young's Chronicles, 467. pastors in the Old Colony, — such as Ralph Partridge of Duxbury, John Lothrop of Barnstable, Henry Dunster of Scituate, Samuel Newman of Rehoboth, and Charles Chauncy of Plymouth.1 of the Massa chusetts The contrast is very marked between such a ministry as these statements indicate, and the ministry which we find in the Colony of Massachusetts in its earlier years, when Higginson, Cotton, Norton, Hooker, Mather, Shepard, and The Ministers their associates were the intellectual leaders of their people, as well as their spiritual guides. Some of them had carried off the honors in the English universities. They were among the strongest men in the Colony.) This difference indicates a great difference in the financial resources of the people of the two colonies, and possibly a difference in their intelligence also. Colony. There were among the Puritans at that time a large number of men of broad and liberal learning. They were already beginning to send to the press books and pamphlets that were very creditable to their intelligence and their training. These books were published in London at first, and later in Salem and Boston. The literature of the first half century is creditable not only to the authors, but to the readers who were able to follow such close and logical thinking. 1 Goodwin's Pilgrim Republic, 510-540. Copies of these old books have been preserved as heirlooms in the older New England families, whence they are finding their way into the best historical libraries. Those who contributed to this literature were for the most part dwellers in the Puritan colony. The Pilgrims made some valuable contributions, but they are few in number. Boston and Cambridge were as truly the intellectual centres of New England in the seventeenth century as they are in the nineteenth. Har vard College was an important means of influence, and it had much to do in giving the pre-eminence to the younger Colony. X. The Cambridge THE great enterprises undertaken for the general interest of New England had their origin in the Puritan colonies. The synod which prepared the Cambridge Platform, for example, was called by the General Court of Massachusetts; and the men who had the leading part in framing that Platform, and so in moulding the Congregational polity for a hundred years, were either citizens of Massachusetts at that time, or men like Hooker, who had once belonged to that Colony. Governor Bradford was present as the messenger of the church in Plymouth. So was Ralph Partridge of Duxbury, and possibly two or three others from the Old Colony. John Cotton of Boston, Richard Mather of Dorchester, and Ralph Partridge of Duxbury were appointed to draw up, each by himself, a model of church government. The one drawn up by Richard Mather was for substance adopted by the synod. Mr. Partridge also prepared a model, which was not acceptable to the majority, on account of its Low Church tendencies. The manuscript copy, which is still preserved in the Library of the Antiquarian Society at Worcester, shows that the Pilgrim pastor was not as advanced a Congregationalist as the Puritans had already become.1 This was all that the Plymouth Colony contributed toward the result of this most important synod. The New Confederacy. The confederacy of the four principal colonies of New England had its origin in the Puritan Colony of Connecticut. Plymouth was England a member of it, with the colonies of Massachusetts Bay and New Haven; but Plymouth never had a leading part in the Confederacy. This was the first in the long series of unions between the English colonies and provinces of North America, which led, in the course of time, to the confederation of the States 1 Dr. Dexter's Congregationalism as seen in its Literature, 335-338. It should be added that the present Congregationalism is much nearer that of the Plymouth Church than that of the Cambridge Platform. in the national Union. On the whole view of the history, it is plain that the political influence of Plymouth was never very great. XI. In respect to legislation, there was less difference between the Pilgrim and the Puritan colonies than is commonly supposed. Both Legislation. were influenced by the precedents to which they had been accustomed in England, and by the general spirit of the seventeenth century. The Pilgrims had profited by the larger and more tolerant spirit of the Dutch Republic. In both colonies the people claimed the rights and liberties of Englishmen. In both, after a few years, the people were taxed for the support of the regular ministers, just as they had been in England. Punishments which would now be considered harsh and cruel, such as the use of the stocks, the pillory, and the whipping-post, were used in both colonies. The laws of Plymouth against the Quakers were as severe as those of Massachusetts. Meetings of the Quakers for public worship Laws against were forbidden by the laws of the Col- the Quakers. ony of Plymouth, and all who attended such meetings were liable to a fine of ten shillings, and all who spoke at such meetings were liable to a |